By Gillian Shaw, Vancouver
A pot is simmering on the stove and eager clients are gathered to watch Umberto Menghi work his magic in the kitchen.
The setting is not downtown Vancouver, however, nor even the Trattoria Di Umberto in Whistler.
These clients have flown halfway around the world to be tutored in the culinary arts by the famed Vancouver master at his Hotel Villa Delia in Tuscany.
"You have to slice it very thin, buy a slicer," says Menghi, laying out eggplant slices that will become part of a delicious dish to be served in the 17th century villa's dining room later in the day. "When you are frying, if you have very little oil, it picks it all up.
"When you have a lot of oil, it floats in the oil and it doesn't pick it up," he says, deftly flipping the eggplant slices into the frying pan while his apron-clad students scribble down his every word.
"Make sure the oil is very hot, that's the sound you want to hear -- the music of food," he says as the slices sizzle.
Use sunflower oil, by they way. Despite the groves of olive trees surrounding the villa and the bottles of olive oil that get shipped to Vancouver after every harvest, it's not the oil for cooking. Sunflower oil, Menghi tells his students, is resistant to temperature and leaves no flavour behind.
The introduction over, Menghi jollies his students along to try concocting the eggplant rolls with sliced ham and cheese on their own, drizzling béchamel sauce and tomato sauce over them before popping them into the massive ovens of the teaching kitchen.
"We were just going to stay here at the villa and take day trips but it sounded so good we decided to stay for the school," said Maury Corday, on vacation with his wife Doreen from their Vancouver home at Coal Harbour and from Doreen's work as a sous-chef at Caren's Cooking School. "It is awesome.
"Last night at dinner no one could believe we were eating what we cooked yesterday."
Next on the curriculum, delicate baskets made from parmesan -- but not the stuff that comes out of a shaker at Safeway. This is Italy, after all.
"Warm up the pan," instructs Menghi. "The first one is like a crepe. You have to introduce the pan to what we are doing, you may screw up."
The melted cheese flips out of the pan just like a crepe and Menghi drapes it over a bowl, shaping it to a perfect and delicate cheese cup.
His cooking students take orders and nervously try their hand at the stove. In the kitchen, Menghi is the boss even though his students include CEOs, politicians, actors and other types more accustomed to giving orders than taking them.
On this day, Vancouver's Pamela Martin, a news anchor on CTV News at Six, is sharing the experience in a culinary vacation with her mother. Another student, a director of the board of the Bank of America, takes frequent phone calls on her cell as world markets tumble outside the confines of this most comfortable villa.
A few years ago, Jean Chretien and his wife Aline spent some time picking up cooking tips at the school. Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell have donned aprons in the cooking class; the late Charlton Heston had a family reunion at Villa Delia with cooking school part of the entertainment. Wayne Gretzky proved as adept with a spatula as he was with a hockey stick, signing up for a session with his wife Janet.
The food is spectacular, the setting no less so. But it's a pastime that comes at a price.
Visitors can choose to simply stay at the villa or sign up for a cooking school package. A nine-night stay at the villa with all meals included, cooking classes every morning and an excursion every afternoon comes to a total of 7,900 Euros (about $13,340 in today's Canadian dollars) for two people sharing a room. Single occupancy for the nine-day package is 5,105 Euros (about $8,620 Cdn).
The five-night package is 4,310 Euros, about $7,280 for two people sharing. One person pays 2,905 Euros or about $4,900.
For more details, visit the website at www.hotelvilladelia.com
British Columbians Judy and Bob Huta were at the school as a special 60th birthday present for Bob. Fellow student Barbara Beavis was there from Saskatoon.
"One of the things about coming to this school is we never would have had these experiences on our own," Beavis said, tucking into a luncheon that spread over several courses, all centred on truffles, the delicacy of the region.
The group was in a small restaurant in a nearby village, one that Beavis likely would not have stumbled across on her own, and so she would have missed the quail eggs with fresh truffles and other mouth-watering dishes that make you want to jump on a plane to Italy.
"I learned about it through word of mouth," said Mona Dovell. "I thought, 'I'll be in someone's kitchen, it's very intimate.'
"We wanted to experience something more than just touring."
Corday would agree.
"If you came here without Umberto you might have found this town, you might have found this restaurant, but you never would have found this food."
Menghi extols the virtues of truffles as course after course arrives at the table.
"Truffles are running $6,500 a pound," he said, a figure that seems remarkable but shrinks in light of the 165,000 Euros ($265,072 Cdn)paid at auction for one of the largest truffles found in decades, weighing 1.5 kilograms.
"Tuscany more than the rest of Italy, they love to celebrate the moment," Menghi said.
During two months of the year -- one in early summer and one from about mid-September to mid-October -- guests can study with Menghi. The rest of the time, Menghi's sister Marietta Malacarne and her husband, resident manager Silvano Malacarne, run the cooking school.
The villa is down a narrow back road in Tuscany, surrounded by sweeping views of vineyards and olive groves. A swimming pool overlooks the view, alongside a garden that delivers much of the fresh food that goes into the cooking.
Menghi was married in a nearby 11th-century village in 1992, shortly before he opened the Villa Delia, with the entire village transformed and decked out for the occasion.
"It is very difficult to leave Vancouver, it is very hard to leave your business and your family," Menghi says of his twice-yearly visits to Hotel Delia. In the fall, his wife and teenage son stay home. "But in July they are here with me."
The morning cooking class is only part of the experience. Every afternoon is a new adventure -- a vineyard and winery, touring some of Menghi's favourite Tuscan haunts.
"When I opened the place I went around to find the places that were really Tuscany," he said. "Not the tourist spots.
"My approach is, I am going to give you a slice of my Tuscany."
Menghi said the places he takes guests on the afternoon excursions aren't tourist spots.
"You see how they live, the food they eat," he said. "I am sharing it with you.
"They do it because it is their life every day."
Food at the villa is fresh and seasonal. "She cooks like my mother used to cook -- fresh, seasonal, regional food," Menghi said of his sister Marietta. "The food only changes for the seasons."
The Villa Delia is located near the village of Ripoli di Lari. The closest airport, at Pisa, is about a 25-minute drive away. It sits on 75 acres with 71/2 acres of vineyard and 3,700 olive trees.
It produces extra virgin olive oil, some to sell but most going to the cooking school and to Menghi's restaurants in B.C. Some 35,000 bottles of wine from the vineyards go to Vancouver.
From the wine cellar deep under the villa to the spotlessly appointed rooms and the inviting kitchen, the 17th-century villa seems designed to immerse visitors in the good life of Tuscany.
"We want people to feel like they are in somebody's home," said Menghi.
gshaw@vancouversun.com
search here
Custom Search
